Dishwashing
by ShockingRevelations
Summary: Shirou once found a golden cup filled to the brim with purple sludge, so he did what any hero of justice would do; take it home and clean it. Afterwards, some funny coincidences happened. Rated T for cursing.


**A plot bunny I tried killing three times. Then I just gave up and wrote it, considering it's not even 2000 words. Written for the hell of it, and not at all to be taken seriously in any way. Enjoy.**

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"Haa…" Normally, sighing was not something Rin Tohsaka did in public, she did, after all, have a perfect persona to uphold. Today, however, she couldn't help herself; first her friend Ayako Mitsuzuri, captain of the archery club, attacked by a squirrel as they were eating lunch, resulting in several uniforms being dirtied, including hers. Then, a teacher called her out in front of the entire class when she had started dozing off after a long night of magical research. And as if all that wasn't enough, the cabbage stand she frequented – nothing like a fresh head of cabbage to chew on while enjoying a good book – was destroyed, sending all of the fresh, green snacks rolling in the dirt. Granted, the thugs had payed for it, but avatar damn it!

So engrossed was she in wallowing in her misery on the way back home that she didn't watch were she was going, which naturally ended up in her walking straight into somebody else.

"Kyaa!" She did NOT squeal like a little girl, she just voiced her surprise like a dignified woman!

"Ah! Sorry, Tohsaka-san. Didn't see you there." Once she was done furiously rubbing her- _cough_ , once she got past her surprise, she looked up to see a hand attached to somebody infamous in her school; the _Fake Janitor_ , Shirou Emiya. Despite his above average looks, kind personality, and frankly inhuman skill with the bow, he was not considered dating material by any of the girls at school, simply because he was too kind. He would ditch his girlfriend without blinking an eye if somebody else asked him for help at even the most menial of tasks, effectively nullifying his popularity.

"It's fine, I wasn't paying attention myself." She took his hand and let him pull her up like any idol would and intended to walk away from this encounter like it never happened, but before she could, Emiya Shirou happened.

"Let me cook for you as an apology." That came out of nowhere. But no, she had an important magical experiment she had to perform soon, otherwise the stars wouldn't align for another week!

"It's fine, Emiya-kun; you don't have to do that."

"I insist." Well, what do you know. Better give up now like a dignified woman of high standing like herself than making a scene.

A slightly strained smile alongside a 'very well' sealed the deal, and the two high schoolers walked side by side to his rather big house, one Rin was surprised he owned, what with his status as an orphan and all. ' _Inheritance, I suppose._ '

Twenty minutes later she sat at the table on a cushion as was Japanese tradition – she missed chairs already – while the boy went into the kitchen and cooked dinner. The table was positioned so she could also see the living room, which contained a TV and speakers on either side. The sofa facing it was not a piece of furniture she would lower herself to buy, but it wasn't picked out of somebody's trash either. The pictures that stood here and there, combined with the slightly messy look of books and mangas strewn about gave the room a homely feel.

As the redhead exited the kitchen with his hands full of dishes, all of which smelled heavenly, her focus switched from the interior decoration to her schoolmate, noticing his content smile, allowing her to deduce that he enjoyed making food, and going by his (too) helpful attitude at school, he probably enjoyed people savoring his cooking. _'Elementary, dear Watson.'_ Her internal image of herself smiling smugly disappeared when the first bite of the steak entered her mouth, and she felt she could finally understand what Ayako called a _foodgasm_. Both tender, yet firm; hot, yet not searing; tasty, yet not overwhelming.

So absorbed was she in the food that she didn't notice the boy get up and walk back into the kitchen before returning with a cup for himself. It was only after she'd inhale- _cough_ , eaten all the food sitting in front of her that she took notice of her surroundings again. Quickly realizing that she'd completely lost her persona in front a fellow student, she paled, her head snapping to the redhead who was coincidentally sipping from his cup

"E-Emiya-kun… where did you get that cup?" Rin's face had gone from pale to ashen as she instantly recognized the magical nature of the golden chalice the boy had graced with his lips.

Surprised by the topic his classmate chose to break the ice with, he nonetheless answered her truthfully, just like a hero of justice would! "Hm? Oh, I found it when I visited Ryuudou Temple upon Issei's insistence two years ago. Once I stepped into the courtyard, I felt like something was calling me, so I excused myself and went looking for the cause. I found a cave towards one end of the compound, and after walking downwards for a few minutes, I reached a roughly hewn chamber."

Rin had never even entertained the possibility that the cup was anything more than a moderately powerful mystic code his family once came across somewhere, but the more he revealed, the more that infinitesimally tiny possibility that it was _The Cup_ started making itself known. As one of the founding families, the Tohsaka library naturally held knowledge about the placement and appearance of the _Holy Grail_ , something the cup in the redhead's hands looked eerily alike.

"In the middle of the chamber stood a pedestal, and upon that again was this cup." At this point, Shirou's happy-go-lucky smile an attitude left his face and a more serious façade graced him. "It was filled with a sickly-looking, purple sludge that wouldn't spill even when I held the cup upside down. Naturally, I didn't want to touch the stuff, after all, at that point in time I could have sworn I could hear the stuff cursing and wailing at me, so I grabbed it and took it home in order to clean it."

As Shirou's expression returned to its default state, making it really obvious that he was remembering the incident, Rin's mind was going a thousand miles an hour, trying to imagine a feasible reason for _The motherfucking Holy Grail_ to be tainted by something when she remembered something that fake priest once told her back when he was still alive. ' _As one of the founding families, there are a surprising number of loopholes you can take advantage of when it comes to the Grail War. Take the Einzbern for a bit of an extreme example; in the third war they managed to summon a divine spirit, but because of the grail balancing it, the supposed god ended up being the weakest servant in the history of the Holy Grail Wars, and considering the fact that Shakespeare was summoned in the second war, that is truly saying something. Take that as a lesson to not go too far.'_

When she had asked him what sort of god they got, all he told her was that it was not a benevolent one. But that meant that an evil god somehow got summoned, one that somehow didn't return to the throne - what was a god doing in the throne anyways? – and instead managed to stay inside the grail! Quick, where was it now!?

"That was by far the longest day of my life, you know. I burned through **five** bottles of dishwashing soap, **ten** dish brushes, three **packets** of steel wool, and about two **thousand** liters of water. I just sat there that Saturday for fourteen hours scrubbing and scrubbing while the purple goo was very slowly being drained away. To this day I wonder if the enhanced taste of anything I drink from it was caused by the ludicrous amount of soap I used back then." Watching the boy sit there reminiscing about how he spent way too long washing a cup he planned on just drinking like normal from, Rin's mind had shut down to protect herself from mental damage. Rebooting didn't take long however, and within seconds she tried to make sense of his tale.

 _He… he cleansed the most magical artifact in the world of an evil god, something even the church's greatest exorcists with all the sacred sacraments the church has available would be hard pressed to do, with soap… Unlikely._ After reaching the conclusion that it couldn't possibly be _The Holy Grail_ , she instead asked him a question. "Say, has anything weird happened ever since you found and cleaned that cup?"

Shirou was pulled out of his reverie when his classmate asked her newest question, and he crossed his arms before putting one hand on his jaw, adopting a classical thinking pose. "Hm… Oh, I think the local priest died of heart failure that day. He was just in his mid-thirties, too. Funny coincidence, that."

That shut Rin up real quick. _Yeah, that was weird. Came out of nowhere, too._ "Did you perhaps ever wish for anything while drinking from it?" Now she just wished it was merely a host of coincidences, but his next words threw that hope right out the window.

"Well, I remember seeing Sakura sad at something one day when she came over for breakfast like usual, so I might have wished that she would become happy. Both her grandfather and brother died that day. Another funny coincidence, that." At first, he'd been sad at the loss of life, but once Sakura gave him a really deep kiss – something she did every day since - his mind simply moved on. Yet again in his pondering pose, Shirou missed the way Rin's eyes opened further than should be possible in conjunction with one thought: _Holy shit._

Now convinced that it was the real deal, her whole demeanor changed from 'weirded out' to 'exited'. Perhaps she could make him wish for something and see the Holy Grail in action! "Nee, Emiya-kun, why don't you try wishing for something now? Maybe your luck will strike again."

Not at all creeped out by the now really energetic girl, Shirou figured he might as well entertain her. "Well, I wouldn't mind an instructor in swordsmanship; Taiga is too busy with her job… Okay, here goes!" He closed his eyes and brought all his thoughts to his wish as he lifted the cup to his mouth and drank from it. The moment the cup left his lips, a shining magical circle appeared on the floor next to him, out of which came a person.

"Servant Saber, at your service. Let's start training right away, master!" Stupefied and with her mouth hanging open, Rin watched as the redhead was dragged away to the dojo by a really energetic, five-foot-tall, petite blonde woman dressed in a pair of bloomers and a white t-shirt with the name _Arturia_ written on it. Allowing herself five seconds to process that, her stupefied expression turned into what could be considered maleficent; _Mountains of jewels, here I come!_

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 **This is** **a one-shot and will not be updated further. Do yourself a favor and don't follow this, lest you clutter that list even further than you already have (though favorite if you laughed). Let's see if we can get zero follows and a dozen likes. _  
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